A New Kind of Medicine

Dr. Vickery is truly devoted to bringing good health to everyone. Here are some of the unique ways he’s making receiving medicine and medical care easy—just as it should be.

Vickery Family Medicine

Vickery Family Medicine is a full-service primary care office treating patients of all ages. Established in 2005, VFM has multiple providers with different focuses (women’s health, weight loss, osteopathy, occupational medicine, etc.) and X-ray and lab in house. The providers have been awarded multiple honors, such as Angie’s List Best Of and Best of WNC.

Self-Pay Rates

If VFM doesn’t take a patient’s insurance or if they’d prefer not to use it, they’re offered cash prices for office visits (due in full the day of the visit).

Direct Primary Care

Through their second company, Synergy Health Solution, they’re able to offer direct primary care to folks without insurance. Because they’re not contracted with any insurance company, they can deliver healthcare at an affordable rate for patients. Patients just pay a flat fee each month and have access to unlimited visits with no copay, and labs and procedures are discounted. Though it doesn’t exempt patients from the ACA penalty for no insurance, “it does provide access to consistent, affordable, compassionate healthcare that is often absent with high-deductible insurance plans,” says Margarita Gonzalez, Administrative Director at VFM..

Sona Pharmacy & Clinic

Sona is locally owned and independently operated, meaning they’re also a bit more flexible. They deliver prescriptions for free, and the retail pharmacy is small, but the over-the-counter products are highly recommended by clinic providers.

Sona Clinic (owned and operated by VFM) is unique in that it operates on a first-come-first-serve primary care model for both established patients and new patients without an appointment. The clinic is open seven days a week, until 7 p.m. on weekdays. “The main goal is easy access to primary care services,” says Gonzalez.

Dr. Vickery’s Guide to Health

1. Eat healthfully and source locally. Not only is eating local foods better for the environment and your community, it’s better for your body. These foods are chock-full of good-for-you ingredients like omega-3s. Be aware of your portion sizes and eliminate junk carbs and you’ll be amazed by your new energy.

2. Move your body. “If you don’t love ‘exercise,’ renarrate it!” Dr. Vickery says. Take your dog for a walk, play ball with the kids, whatever it is, just move.

3. Sleep well. That means turning off electronics an hour before bed and logging the recommended 7-9 hours per night. Doing so will quicken your metabolism and help your body handle stress responses.

4. Turn off stress input. If you surround yourself with constant contact to stressful situations—pinging work emails, stressful or dramatic friends—your health suffers. Know when to turn them off.

5. Meditate. “It’s not just a cliché,” says Dr. Vickery. Some quiet reflective time for yourself gives your brain time to recover.

January is the month of resolutions, and most of them orbit a single idea: health. Gyms fill with new fitness devotees, piles of organic produce dwindle at alarming rates, folks hit the pillow earlier and their yoga mats later. And yet, good health is a seemingly unattainable goal for a growing percentage of Americans.

Dr. Gus Vickery is a doctor in the truest sense of the word, in that his singular goal is to improve the overall health and well-being of all his patients—and even those who aren’t his patient. Over the past decade, he’s watched as rates of formerly rare conditions like fibromyalgia, diabetes, chronic pain and migraines have increased with alarming swiftness. Simultaneously, he’s pinpointed the cause of these health problems and set out to revoke it. It all comes back to one factor: poor health.

“The first thing they have to do is actually desire [good health],” Dr. Vickery notes, his elbows propped on the desk, fingers arching to meet. “We can almost always identify things that individual could begin to implement themselves that will facilitate their movement toward optimal health.”

The problem is that those simple changes are actually difficult. Dr. Vickery notes that folks often have a large list of complaints, but when you offer solutions they shut down quickly. But if you’re open to those solutions and genuinely want to feel good, the first step is to see how your daily habits align with your end goal—namely, good health. “Take an inventory of your daily habits,” he says. “What do you eat, drink, sleep, expose your brain to, who do you socialize with, who are your influencers? Are those consistent with what you say you want for yourself?” And if not—be willing to change.

But often Dr. Vickery is met with the response, “I get that, but why can’t I make it happen?” That’s where the science comes in.

The prefrontal cortex is the muscle of the brain that allows you to develop emotions, think critically, create visions and act upon them. For years, dopamine (received through addictive habits—anything from eating fatty foods to shopping to gambling to watching tv) was thought to be a direct response to pleasure, but recent research has proved it’s actually the desire or craving for pleasure, which triggers repeated actions. Dopamine also activates a stress response that directly inhibits the prefrontal cortex, which under most circumstance would help you think more clearly.

“Brains weren’t supposed to have dopamine triggered over and over again, but that’s what happens,” Dr. Vickery notes. “We’re constantly surrounded by sights and smells of fatty, sugary food, alcohol, tobacco, our tech pinging constantly.” These are products that were engineered to be addictive; you crave them, but they never lead to actual pleasure.

On the other hand, there are healthy habits that help build and sustain true well-being. “Exercise, meditation, yoga, listening to music, socializing, reading, taking a walk, playing with your pet, attending a religious ceremony—the things people sought for millennia,” says Dr. Vickery. “The more you do them, the stronger pathways become, and the less susceptible you are to dopamine.”

So how do you build those positive habits that will in turn eliminate the bad ones? The first step is to source your food well. Chronic inflammation and blood clots are common ailments in his practice, but Dr. Vickery says that the right foods can eliminate those symptoms. Local, grass-fed meats, smaller portions, eliminating sugar and junk carbs—simple changes that reverse a host of metabolic diseases and naturally manage weight. The other keys to health include sleeping, exercise (or, as Dr. Vickery puts it, simply “movement”), and meditation (just taking some reflective time for yourself).

But Dr. Vickery understands that these changes are all easier said than done, which is why he and his team do their absolute best to make them accessible to everyone who steps though their door. For primary care copay, they offer patients a nutritional curriculum, help teach them their new skills, and offer access to cognitive behavioral specialists and nutritionists whenever possible. “We help them see that future they want for themselves,” he says. “They’ll access a mental and physical vitality they may have never tasted in their life, and they will never trade it back again.”